The Weight of Water

We move through the world as if the ground beneath us is fixed, a permanent truth. But there are places where the earth is merely a suggestion, a thin skin stretched over the deep, dark pulse of water. To cross such a place is to accept that you are temporary. You do not own the path; you only borrow it for the length of a stride. We carry so much with us—our histories, our heavy intentions—yet here, the surface barely holds. It is a quiet negotiation between the weight of a body and the patience of the flood. We are always crossing something, aren’t we? A threshold, a season, a silence. We step forward, hoping the surface will sustain us, yet knowing that beneath the green, the water waits to reclaim what we have brought into the light. What remains when the crossing is finished?

Shahnaz Parvin has captured this fragile passage in her work titled Voyage Through Nature. It reminds me that we are all just travelers on shifting ground. Does the water feel the weight of your passing?